Hotel Revenue & Management Blog

The sector-wide standard for hotel accounting practises, the Uniform System of Accounts for the Lodging Industry (USALI format) has been in operation in some form or other since 1926. With our experience as a hotel management company, we can say that these best practises are essential for any hotel to create higher uniformity and consistency in the presentation and understanding of a hotel´s performance. The primary functions of this uniform system of accounts for hotels has been to provide hotel managers, owners, and other relevant stakeholders with operating statements, and to be able to run comparative analyses across different business areas. The 11th edition of USALI was released in 2015, requiring hotels to update how they reported accounting and financial data and introducing many new changes. Now knowing the importance of the system, let's take a deeper look at the details and highlight what is most important to understand as a stakeholder for a hotel.

Capturing hotel guest data and information including email addresses and other contact details has become a fundamental part of any successful hotel management strategy. Central to a winning strategy is an intelligent, modern email marketing approach. Even with the rise of social media and other digital communication channels, email remains the channel of reference for hotels to build a well-rounded distribution strategy, drive direct sales, issue special offers, and promote online reputation management.

For many people, starting their own boutique hotel or luxury bed and breakfast is like a dream. Most are drawn by the charm of hospitality and see it as a chance to start a new beginning. But opening a hotel business , just like any new company, is more difficult than it might seem at first sight.

Particularly if you have never worked in the international hotel industry, you will be faced with many things you might have not considered or imagined before. The hotel business is highly competitive and achieving good financial results is not as easy as it seems.

In my experience at XOTELS – Hotel Revenue Management Consulting in dealing with entrepreneurs and investors, I have found that there is no shortage of creative ideas for innovative hotel concepts. The challenge, however, lies more in the strategic and organizational areas of the business.

The unofficial definition of Revenue Management used by insiders is ‘the art of turning away business’. This certainly does not apply during the current Covid-19 (coronavirus) global healthcare crisis, and the economic downturn the hotel industry is facing in its aftermath. All the standard strategies and playbooks are out of the window right now. So what to do?

It is a question I often hear when explaining what we do at XOTELS-Hotel Revenue Management Consulting. People seem surprised hotels are willing to hand over a vital part of their strategies to a 3rd party. Such a sensitive and key part to the success of your business as revenue management should not be left to an ‘outside’ company many hoteliers respond.